Ulan Baator

After 42 days, 8440 miles, broken suspension, blown tires, broken transfer box mountings, scorching deserts, sub-zero nights, 4 ft river crossings, crooked cops and endless roads we've made it! Welcomed into Dave's bar with a pint and a full English breakfast. We can't believe it's over. And it's not. We've still got to get ourselves to Beijing for the flight home.

Sweet sweet tarmac

Finally on a piece of good road after 6 days of Mud and Gr(sh)it our spirits have lifted enormously as we make the final 500km dash for UB. Location: Arvayheer

Tough

Toughest day's driving yet. Flooded roads, broken suspension and river crossing following torrential rain are making progress very difficult. 3 days to UB City? Location: N 46deg11.637min E 100deg43.115min.

Rain on the Plain

It's raining heavily on the plain, heading towards Bayanhongor. Finally got gearbox oil (via the gear stick). Broken front suspension. 4 hours to fix. Tough.

Altai City, Mongolia

The cars in our convoy have taken a real beating. The Mitchell Brothers are onto their 6th set of leaf springs and progress is slow. The stutter bumps are like a pneumatic drill to the cars, punctuated with axle eating pot holes. Our spirits are still good except in banks where they won't change our money (possibly because we haven't washed for 4 days).

Fortunately the nights are warming up and the transfer case mounts have been bodged with an inner tube and Araldite.

We've see illegally sold rally cars which is a little down heartening but onwards we trudge towards UB and a cold beer.

650 miles to go!

Slow progress

Covered 300 miles in 3 days. Forded rivers. Pulled friends out. Washed in rivers. Should be in UB in 5days. Location Khovd City.

Mongolia!

We're in Khovd, Western Mongolia. We've been traveling for 3 days and have barely covered 300 miles. Not because the roads are terrible - they're not, nothing like as bad as Kazakhstan. More because we're with a convoy on vehicles that are going slowly because bits are hanging off. The Mitchell bros' SJ has had no rear suspension for 2 days. Our transfer box is still untied and bouncing around underneath the car. Four wheel drive now only works in low ratio mode.

We've done a couple of river crossings, which didn't cause us any problems. We towed our 2 wheel drive friends, Team Ski (http://teamski.awardspace.com) out of a spot of trouble.

We're heading into the Gobi desert next...

Blog again in a few days.

Last border crossing. Hooray!

We're in Mongolia! As amazing as we'd expected. Incredibly friendly locals, stunning scenery, freezing nights. We've decided on the southern route. Looks tough.

Barnaul

We're heading into the final fling. 2 days from Mongolian border. Looking forward to the 9000ft climb to the border crossing. Border crossing from Kaz into Russia a new record. 1.5 hours. Magic. Russian roads so much better than Kaz, but people not as friendly. They're alright if you talk to them for a bit, but it's always you that has to break the ice and be funny and make them laugh.

Looking forward to getting in convoy with Mitchell brothers through Mongolia. www.mitchellbrothersrally.co.uk

Back to Kaz:

Left Kyrgz after 3hrs sleep. Back in Kaz in convoy with bikers and mitchell brothers. Roads are Ok-ish. 1000km to Semey.Sheared gearbox mountings...have bodged for now.

Into Kyrgystan

Easy border into krgystan. Stayed in Osh, far west Krrg.m Beautiful mounyain climbs and crystal clear lakes. Now inh convoy with three other teams. Position: N 41 Deg 46.6 Mins E 073 Deg 02.2 Mins.

We've had a change of mind. Now on our way to Kyrgyzstan. Finally out of Tashkent! Soaring mounting ranges. We have suffered a rear tire blow-out and lost a bit of our wing but nothing major. Current position North 40 Deg 32.8 Mins, East 071 Deg 06.4 Mins

50mph syndrome

5000 miles and counting...

We're now in Tashkent after trooping the length of Kazakhstan and traversing Uzbekistan. So much has happened since our last full blog entry, not helped by the fact that blogs are blocked here as they're seen as politically unsuitable. We can't even read what we've written.

Having fallen into convoy with the Mongol Bikers and the Sand Badgers in Atiyrau, we've seen off the searing 45 degree heat of the Kazakh desert, a complete lack of roads, towed beached cars out of sand, encountered scorpions, black widows, wild horses, camels and various mechanicals and come out relatively unscathed.

Atiyrau was a wonderful start to our Kazakh adventure and after driving the world's longest and straightest roads, we pulled into the first hotel (which turned out to be run by teenagers)with Mongol Rally cars parked outside. After a brief photoshoot with the security guards we headed out for a beer and a sandwich at the only place open in town...only to meet the General Director of KazTransGas and pals! After a some hilarious banter concerning Litvinyenko, Abramovich and Putin we found ourselves our latest sponsor! 100 dollars peeled off a fat roll of cash is impressive anywhere. We'll be putting this kind donation to towards our tally when we get home (no secure card payments here...)

It's probably worth mentioning that whilst it's always good to meet other ralliers, other ralliers going the opposite direction is less amusing. Before entering the desert we met 3 rally teams heading north. After rumours of bandits and highwaymen, meeting this bunch was the final straw. They had bandaged feet, ruined cars, red eyes, dirt from head to tow, and looked like the kids from Lord of the Flies. With much trepidation we continued, only to find the roads were more like mortored a battle field, punctuated with deep sand. 4 days later we emerged unwashed and caked head to tow in cement like dust and with a broken motorbike. The cars will never be clean again...

Richard nearly had us through the Uzbek border in under an hour until they decided to close for a 3 hour lunch break to watch browse porn on their laptop, leaving us surrounded by 40 inquisitive Uzbeks who it seemed had never seen a motorbike before. Finally cleared the border to find no towns for 300 kms. Pressing on to get the Sand Badgers leaking gearbox sorted turned out to be a mistake and as night descended we lost Sand Badger Tom for 45 minutes, suffered 4 motorbike breakdowns including a complete loss of bike head lights, lost our fuel filler cap and hit a cyclist at 2am...well me didn't, Mongol Biker James did. What could have turned out to be an absolute catastophe worked out okish, solved by a can of Savlon and half a litre of Vodka. Onwards we rolled through mosquito infested swamplands where exhaustion struck and hallucinations at the wheel ensued, including coloured cows and walls in the road.

We finally rolled into the ex-Soviet chemical testing ground of Nukus at 3am to find a hotel. We emerged the next morning to confront our mosquito ravaged reflections in the cracked mirrors.

We stayed another day in Nukus, as James had a serious visa issue and a twisted bike to sort out. Also, Tom's Peugeot needed the gearbox looking at. We took it to a Daewoo expert called "The Master" and he fixed it up good.

Nukus to Samarkand was the plan for the next day. We got up early, had breakfast and hit the road. Or rather hit the town looking for petrol. After an hour of pointless driving around a man very kindly offered to escort us to a petrol station. When we got there he revealed himself to be a TV reporter and we then had to do an interview for Good Morning Uzbekistan. When we got out of town we drove 400km through an endless desert. All was going well until it got dark and the number of cyclists and donkey carts increased as our speed dropped to a crawl. All you can say is that driving at night in central asia is scary and bloody dangerous. We decided to pull up short at Bukhara

In Kazakhstan

In convoy with 2 rally teams, top guys. Camping for the third night in Kazakh desert. Roads are unbelievebly hard- 10 hrs to do just 100 miles. Sand dunes scorpions and camels. We'll be in Uzbekistan by 10am tomorrow.

1 August

Finally in to Russia. Air temp 35oC. Heading to Volgograd. 3 hours to cross border. Met another team late last night at Hotel Lubansk. Couple of lads from Scotland. They helped us out with some exhaust putty to fill all the holes. Really motoring now.

31 July

In Lubansk (far Eastern Ukraine). 37oC heat. Melting tarmac and the car suffering from overheating in the towns. We hit the Russian border tomorrow morning at 8am.

More than one quarter of the way there...

...that's what it says on our milometer. We're in Kharkiv, Eastern Ukraine. After really busting a gut across Ukraine, we're now going to have to wait a couple of days to cross into Russia as our visas don't start until August 1st - Wednesday. We've covered 2400 miles and so far our trusty old jeep hasn't missed a beat.

Since crossing into Ukraine we've really been feeling the change in cultures. To be honest, we felt a bit out of our depth - not having a word of the language or even a letter of the alphabet. Our first day in Ukraine, after making the three hour border crossing from Slovakia - we drove about 300 miles from Uzgohrod - the poverty of which was utterly shocking, it came up on us so quickly - past Lvov and ended up being so tired and frazzled that we just pulled off the road to sleep in a field. We tried to ask a farmer if we could sleep on his land, but for some reason he wasn't having it and we were forced to drive on and park behind a hedge, crossing our fingers that no one would see us. Apparently it's not illegal to camp wild in Ukraine, but you never know when some canny farmer might come along with a slavering dog - or so my over-active imagination told me. We were just finishing our excellent meal of Army ration pack boil in the bag lancashire hotpot followed by fruit dumplings, when an old farmer on his bike peddled silently passed without saying a word. That was it: I was convinced he was going to bring a couple of the village hard-men to either evict us or turn us over. In the end, no such thing happened, but I didn't sleep a wink and got up the next day a complete nervous wreck.

It's become weird how being in the car, and being moving feels the most natural place to be. We barely paused for breath in Kiev yesterday, something we now really regret; it's a beautiful city, perfectly preserved. The really stressful times are at night, trying to find somewhere to stay. And also trying to find food. But being on the road, moving is fine.

Yesterday we saw some really ugly car crashes. Mangled metal and bloody bodies on the highway. And then, in state of mild shock, we were being passed by kamikazee truck drivers, just a mile later. We had to pull over for a break.

27 July

Made border crossing into Ukraine this morning after 3 hour wait. Guards tried to steal our cameras. Roads around town are shocking. 800 km to Kiev.

26 July

Currently in Hungry east of Budapest, N 47 Deg 42.3 Mins by E 020 Deg 10.6 Mins. The mighty one is runing well after 1385 miles. we should be in Ukraine by sundown.

Same clothes, different day

Same clothes, different day

We're in Prague at the moment. Driving across Germany is never very exciting at the best of times so here are the potted highlights:

Autobahn's do have speed limits - Ali thinks he got a speeding ticket the day before yesterday somewhere outside Duisburg (where there was a distinct lack of pink pomphlets!). We'll see what turns up in the post when we get home...

We towed a broken down VW golf up a steep hill (German engineering? - you can keep it!) for a nice young couple on their holidays.

The exhaust is cracked and is leaking fumes into the cab. It's ok on the motorway where we can happily sit at our excellent top speed of 50mph and keep the windows fully open.

The viscous fan (don't ask) is causing a few overheating problems around town, but it's nothing she can't handle.

We're miles behind the official rally. We saw a couple in a layby in Germany at 2am on Sunday morning but since then nothing. We arrived in Prague a day late,
so our chances of catching up are ebbing away.

Richard forgot the logbook document for the car so we'll be stuck at the Ukraine border. We're waiting for a new copy to turn up in the UK and then hope we can get it emailed over and we'll forge a copy in Kinkos in Vienna or Budapest. Still plenty of time before we have to get to the Russian border.

Finally, the lights keep flicking on and off, so we think avoiding driving at night might be best.

Until next time

Over and out. R and A

 

1 days to go...

...no entry yesterday but the last two days of preparations have been insanely busy. Yesterday Fenny Bridges Garage came through for us in a big way. They fixed the bust rear differential and made all the other small modifications we needed. They also pointed us in the direction of Penfolds Breakers yard, the finest scrap car yard in Devon. Ali and Simon (who's been helping out in Richard's absence) trawled around a bunch of other scrap yards only to find them rude, ignorant and really uncharitable. Thankfully, they then found Penfolds, who, as luck would have it, had a long-wheel base SJ lying around waiting to be stripped for parts. So now we have a spare radiator, alternator, carburetor, leaf springs, half-shafts, full set of off road tyres and a bunch of other small things that should make our trip a little less uncertain in the mechanics department.

 

We also had our picture taken for the local papers yesterday. And today we found that the Sidmouth Herald had given us the front page, bless them.

 

Today we finally loaded everything into the Jeep and filled our rucksacks. Almost everything fits, which is a complete surprise. Tonight we go to bed, tired but satisfied that two days of hard work mean we can head off tomorrow completely prepared...

 

...after we have picked up Ali's sleeping bag from the ParcelForce depot ("Sorry, we couldn't deliver it because of the heightened security around the new Harry Potter book." What!?) and picked up our anti-malaria drugs...

3 days to go

...and after putting our vehicle in for a much delayed full service, we find that the rear differential is knackered and needs to be replaced. Cue much stress and nashing of teeth as Ali and his trusty helper Simon (Richard is still at work, the lazy arse) race around trying to find an old scrap SJ that we can pillage for parts.

Ali called to tell me all of this last night, as I was packing to leave. Thankfully we think we've found a vehicle that we can strip. It's just a matter of trying to get it all cheap enough so that we don't blow the budget before we go. And hoping that our garage (Fenny Bridges motors) will be able to fit it in time for us to catch the 7 o'clock ferry from Dover that we're booked onto.

Finally...

The Jeep

...we have a vehicle.

A bargain price - though we shan't say how much, modesty forbids - we got it for less than the asking price and much cheaper than trying to buy something on Ebay. I pity anyone who has tried to buy a cheap car on Ebay. Every time the auction is coming to a close the price sky-rockets as, I suspect, the seller, aided by friends, sends in a load of bids to force the price up. We've seen vehicles a lot crummier than what we've got go for twice what we paid.

On the downside, we've taken her (as I shall very likely refer to The Jeep from here on in) out for a couple of test drives and above 40 mph it is ear-bleedingly noisy in the cab. Ali thinks we should think about sound proofing and I don't disagree. Let the modifications commence.

An inauspicious beginning

Whoops

I'm not sure this really is the beginning of our journey to Mongolia, but it is the first significant thing to happen. We decided to make this epic trip way back in October 2006 but, thus far, we have failed to get our arses in gear and start preparing. So, with this in mind I was making the journey back home from London on Friday night, hoping to spend the weekend looking at used cars but, as usual, I got stuck in god-awful traffic, and decided to take a short cut across rural Wiltshire. All was going well until a country lane threw me a nasty right hand corner with some off camber for good measure and before I knew it my little car was flipping through the air and landing with a bang.

I rolled the car twice and banged my head slightly as the roof caved in. I wasn't badly hurt and, I think, came to my senses quickly, turning the engine and lights off and removing the keys. I crawled out the broken passenger side window as the driver's door wouldn't open. My hands picked up a bit of glass doing this but I must have been too shocked to notice. I just thought my hands were wet, and wiped them on my jeans. It wasn't until much later than I saw my trousers looked like a butchers apron. It was raining so I grabbed my bags and an old blanket from the boot and curled up on the verge. Thankfully a few other drivers had decided to take the same shortcut and, wisely, weren't going as quickly as me, so someone was along to help soon after. I don't know the gentleman's name, but thank you for calling the police.

After a bit I wandered up the hill and found pieces of my phone, and wallet in the road. Miraculously the phone, when put back together, worked, and my wallet was only missing some small change.

The car was a write-off, which is a shame because it was a really nice car.